I’ve really enjoyed the Comms Creative Social Media Expert course so far. It’s been a great opportunity for me to gain a better understand of social media under the influence of the knowledgeable Helen Reynolds. I’m eager to be able to use this knowledge to provide improved social media services for our clients. Here are three key social media tips for housing comms pros:
Audience
Understanding your audience is key for improved engagement. Your audience is never “everyone”, and once you fully understand your audience’s relationship to your brand and what content they’d like to see on your channels, you can improve your engagement. AI tools, such as ChatGPT, can be great for finding out more about your audience, such as what they like/dislike, what they value and what problems they may face, in order to tailor your content for your followers.
Understand your channels
Each social channel has its own culture and purpose. For example, Facebook is a laid-back platform people use to keep in touch with their friends and family, whereas LinkedIn is a professional site where people tend to be “on their best behaviour” and like to showcase their professional achievements to their peers. It’s strategic to select topics to use on each channel that resonate with a variety of audiences, rather than repurposing the same content for all your channels.
Use humour (within reason)
As I’m sure we know, it can be hard to create engaging content when working in an industry such as social housing. Residents could be overcoming difficulties, such as financial hardship. However, some of the best content around has been created by ‘dry’ organisations, such as Monzo. This bank has 65,000 followers on TikTok, with some of their videos reaching 14.5m views as a result of jumping on social trends. When creating content for social housing residents, it’s important to create light-hearted and humorous content that resonates with everyday life situations, without trivialising their challenges.
If you’d like to have a chat with one of our talented PR professionals about how we can help share your stories, contact me at harriett.bolton@see-media.co.uk.
Harriett Bolton is a Senior Account Executive at See Media
